Sep 07, 2024 20:00:00

Homemade solar concentrator that produces 1000W of heat with 3.8W of power

Robot engineer

Rémi Peuchot has developed a solar concentrator that uses 48 mirrors to collect sunlight in one place and generate 1000 W of heat. The solar concentrator can automatically track the movement of the sun, and the design drawings and software source code are also available.

remipch/solar_concentrator: Homemade automated solar concentrator 🔧 ☀️ 🔎
https://github.com/remipch/solar_concentrator

Below is the solar concentrator developed by Peuchot. 48 mirrors are arranged in a curved shape. The device on the left is equipped with a camera that controls the position of the mirror according to the movement of the sunlight.

Here's what it looks like when in use. The sunlight is reflected by a mirror and focused on the target. The power required for the entire device to operate is 3.8W, and the collected heat energy is said to reach 1000W.

The target has four square marks at its four corners. The camera photographs the marks and the points where sunlight is concentrated, and the angle of the mirror is adjusted so that sunlight is always concentrated in the center of the target.

The mirrors move automatically in accordance with the movement of the sun, but at the time of writing, no safety measures have been implemented. Therefore, the heat collected may cause fires or burns to humans and animals. For this reason, Peuchot urges people who try to build their own devices to always monitor the device while it is in operation.